China and the World of Business • China Business and the World

“Honey, quick – where’s the camera?” or How I Became a Photojournalist Wannabe

David Turchetti passed me this link to Scoopt™, a new site that allows people to upload photos from their digital camera or camera phone (the latter via MMS) and sell them to news outlets.

Set aside for the moment the prognostications (photojournalists now are true freelancers, bureaus and newswires are disintermediated, everyone a photojournalist) and the objections (who wants to negotiate for every single photo, who wants to slog through all of the junk that will be uploaded, etc.).

Instead, consider this:

The implications for China are huge. How do you possibly manage your image to the world when all of a sudden 200 million of your people are potential sources of news photographs?

I’m taking bets: how long before the authorities block Scoopt and Flickr?